


Regarding Snowfall

by Maggiemaye



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Snow, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8996896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggiemaye/pseuds/Maggiemaye
Summary: He thinks of telling her that he wants nothing more than for her to see her stars every night. That he wants only to give to her, and never to take, if he can help it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays to everyone! I haven't written Kiliel in a while, so I hope this is okay. I wanted to give you guys a nice holiday gift for being awesome and wonderful <3 Hope you enjoy!
> 
> I'm thinking of putting this into the Under the Mountain series, but I'm still deciding if it fits. You can think of it in that 'verse if you're familiar with it :)

When Kili suggests that he and Tauriel spend their evening on the balcony, he does not account for the possibility of snow. He tries to hurry them back into the mountain when the first flakes begin to fall, but Tauriel stills him with a hand on his shoulder.

“A little longer, _a’maelamin_ , please.”

He obliges her, wrapping his arms around himself and ducking his face away from the wind. Tauriel appears unaffected by the cold. She stretches a hand out flat to touch the drops as they fall.

“I fear that I shall never learn to love the snow.”

Kili turns to look at her strangely. Despite her statement, Tauriel beholds the soft flurries with a smile.

“You seem to like it well enough.”

“Yes, when it’s like this.” Her eyes sparkle. “When it is light, and melts away in your hand. But soon it will be thick over the plain, and so cold.”

“I thought elves did not feel the cold.”

“We feel the difference between moving freely and trudging through snow. That is what feels cold.”

She is still smiling, which perplexes Kili. Her garments provide hardly any extra protection from the bite of winter. Her hair is set ablaze by the setting sun behind her, sinking past the mountain to shift the arrangement of light and shadow. Kili prays to never forget how she looks silhouetted against the sun. How strange can he truly be amongst his own kind, to find her beautiful?

He is startled back into full awareness by Tauriel’s fingers stroking through his hair, what little of it she can reach beyond his winter hat. He shuffles closer to her; the cold overcomes much of his sudden shyness of her.

“Stop doing that, Kili.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes you are. You’re looking at me as though I am far away.” Her hand stills on the back of his neck, its coolness somehow soothing even in the winter air. “After all this time do you not believe I am truly here with you?”

“Well,” Kili says, clearing his throat, “it is slightly unbelievable, considering where we are.”

She chuckles at his gesture to the stone at their backs. Truly, she has not stopped _smiling_ since they’d wandered to the balcony. Kili doesn’t know what to make of it, and it drives him a little bit mad. Especially when he thinks about the reason he had wanted to spend an evening alone in the first place.

“Are you happy, Tauriel?”

“Do I not seem so?”

He wants to burst with frustration at this elf-like answer, one that actually tells him nothing.

“I heard a story once outside of Rohan when we went to trade. I’d like to know what you think of it.”

Tauriel nods and resumes petting the ends of his hair, looking entertained.

“The story goes that…that a man was passing through the forest and stopped to rest under a tree. And it turned out that a woman lived in the branches. Well, not a woman, exactly, but a tree-woman. A nymph, or…”

Kili flushes and swallows. He isn’t usually this bad at storytelling, or this flustered around Tauriel. But tonight is different.

“A dryad, perhaps?” she offers.

“Yes, that was it! And anyway, the man fell in love with her in an instant, of course, and he asked her to come back to his village with him. She told him that she couldn’t possibly leave her tree. But he convinced her anyway, and they were married. Years went by, and she eventually grew sick and pale. She loved her husband, but she could not survive outside the forest because it was part of her. So he took her back to live in her tree and they never saw each other again.”

Tauriel regards him silently.

“I didn’t tell it very well, of course,” Kili says nervously. “But you get the idea. What do you think?”

She is quiet for another long moment, her gaze drifting back up to regard the snowfall.

“I think,” says Tauriel slowly, “that a dryad is a very different creature than an elf. And I think that you are kind to worry for me.”

“I’m not trying to be kind,” he bursts out, hand moving instinctively to his pocket. “Well, I am, but…I want to be practical. I know you have said that Erebor is your home now. But I just…”

“Kili.” She takes his face in her hands. “If you are about to ask what I suspect you are, I will accept with eyes as wide as they can be. I choose the mountain for my home. I choose you for my home.”

Kili gazes up at the snowflakes clinging to her eyelashes. He knows what Tauriel looks like when she is holding back from him. That expression is a far cry from the fire he sees in her eyes now. For the first time all evening, his rigid muscles begin to slip into rest.

“Well then,” he replies. “I suppose I must take you at your word.”

“I suppose you must.”

“You’re still laughing at me,” he accuses, sounding huffier than he intends. He grins to make up for it and tilts his cheek against her palm.

“Not at you, _a’maelamin_. I am simply trying to contain my impatience to see what you have in your pocket.”

This time Kili is the one to laugh. “I suppose there is no hiding it any longer, is there?”

His fingers shake only slightly as he draws the comb out of his pocket. Kili had crafted it himself, as was customary; it wasn’t as intricate as some dwarves could have managed, but he hopes Tauriel will appreciate the simplicity of the design. As he fastens it to her hair, Kili thinks of explaining that the diamonds are meant to remind her of the stars she so loves. He thinks of telling her that he wants nothing more than for her to see her stars every night. That he wants only to give to her, and never to take, if he can help it.

But all he says is, “Will you marry me?”

Her smile has lost its teasing glint. It has grown wider— _wilder_ —than any Kili has ever seen on her face. It is all the reassurance he needs; somehow, Tauriel finds life under the mountain.

She leans swiftly down to kiss him, still cradling his face in her long hands. Between their mouths, Kili tastes the freshness of snow.


End file.
